CHAPTER 4: The Rise of Sumerian City-States

1. CHAPTER 4: The Rise of Sumerian City-States

2. Mesopotamia:The land between the rivers • Tigris & Euphrates Rivers • Modern-day Iraq • 1st cities appear In Sumer LINK: Interactive Timeline & Map

3. City-States • Earliest cities date back to 3500 BCE • Each city was like a small, independent country • Each had its own ruler • Each had its own farmlands

4. A Difficult Environment Mesopotamians were farmers Farms need water 4 Key Problems: Food shortages in the hills Uncontrolled water supply on the plains Difficulties building and maintaining irrigation systems to serve several villages at once Attacks by neighboring communities Q: What might neighbors fight over?

5. Food Shortages By 5000 BCE there is not enough land in the foothills to grow enough food for everyone Climate: Foothills: mild weather, plentiful rain, timber for building Plains: dry, little rain, no trees or stones for building, rivers that flood The plains were called Sumer and the people who lived there were called Sumerians Q: Why did people move to the plains?

6. Uncontrolled Water Supply in the River Valley • Spring: rain and melted snow from the mountains flood the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers • Rest of the year: sunbaked soil, dry, hard as stone • Either too much water or not enough • Sumerians built levees & dams

7. Euphrates river canal

8. Building and Maintaininga Complex Irrigation System • Canals bring water from the river • Irrigation passed through many villages • Silt clogs canals • Working together helped communities grow SILT VERY FINE MUD

10. Attacks by Neighboring Communities • Cities fought over the right to use water. • The plains offer no natural barriers for protection. • Sumerians build walls to protect their cities.

12. Was Ancient Sumer a Civilization?

13. Sumerian Civilization

14. Summary • The people of Mesopotamia solved problems in order to live successfully in their environment • Their solutions led to building large walled city states • Sumer had a complex social structure, government, religion, and culture • Sumer was one of the world’s first civilizations